Friday: A Pumpkin screening with Dante. I highly recommend watching that movie in about two years on the USA network at 2PM in the afternoon on a Saturday, right after Mr. Deeds, and before the historic event of the billionth airing of The Breakfast Club.

Saturday: Somehow I made it to the gym. We will not question how this happened, we will only accept that it is a good thing, and we will try to do it again on a Saturday soon. As I left the gym I saw the thick black smoke from the power plant fire down on 14th street, heard all the sirens from the police cars and fire engines, and for a second I was certain we were getting attacked once again. I'm certain I wasn't alone in this sensation. Are we going to feel this insecure in our city forever?

Later I met up with the hippies, my beloved Mollie and Kelly, who were in town for a String Cheese Incident show at Radio City Music Hall. I met them at their hotel room, which they were sharing with Mollie's boyfriend Steve, and their loyal sidekick, Doug. They were playing cards and smoking pot. I lasted about ten minutes in the room. I just wanted to crack a window (or five.) I can't really deal with the marijuana, especially not in large doses in a small hotel room in midtown on a Saturday afternoon. (I could have been home watching The Breakfast Club on USA.)

We finally got out of there and headed to Tobacco Road, which, please click on the link, because it is so worth your time to see the bar's site. Then I won't have to explain anything to you, except to say I didn't know there were any hippie bars in Manhattan, and now I know where to go the next time I am missing me a little bit of Seattle.

There were hippies everywhere! All smelling like that particular brand of funk, one part BO, one part incense or body oil, and one part pot. Plus a bunch of cigarette smoke. Plus there was no AC in the front room, so if you wanted to stay cool, you had to go in the performance area and listen to Tony Furtado and his "folk-groove" band, who were actually pretty good if you like that sort of happy hippie dancing banjo kind of thing, which I don't so much, but at least it didn't totally suck. (No relation to Nelly, by the way. I asked. Then I said, "Do you think he's pissed that she's way more successful than him, and he's way more talented than her?" They didn't think he was. No one gets pissed in the land of the hippies. )

So I did the only thing I could do in that situation: I drank (the drink of summer, jack and ginger, of course.) Also I caught up with the girls. They're such sweet, innocent, kind people. I really like them a lot. Also they made fun of me for looking "corporate" which, I can assure you, I do not. But in their minds, I am, and I think need people to give me shit like that every so often, so I don't ever go to the dark side.

Later the hippies invited me back to the hotel room before the show so they could "get ready" which I believe means "smoke more pot." I declined. I needed to go home and take a really long shower.

In the evening I hung out with Rob at the Bouche Bar, and ran into ominpresent Todd, who, ladies, I don't know if he's single or not, but he's rocking a hot haircut these days that is totally working for him, and he's performing standup at UCB this week. In other words, check that shit out.

I drank more jack and gingers. It was just one of those days, where I needed to keep on drinking, because I could not stop sweating, and it was only after maybe midnight that I started to feel even the slightest bit drunk at all.

Sunday: I took a solid nap in the afternoon because I had stayed up late and was plagued a bit by nightmares. The only thing of note was that I attended a lovely Sex and the City party at Dante's place, where we drank cosmos, ate snacky food (including homemade Madeline cookies!), and watched the pretty OK premiere of the show. Three sets of breasts in one episode? I love that shit.

One of the guests, Joe, told me a story about how he and his boyfriend had been at the new Apple store in Soho when the power went out, and it had been freaky because all of the computers just shut off at once in this big, minimalist space. When they walked outside they saw low-flying jets, which were, coincidentally, a part of some display at Yankee Stadium that day. But they didn't know that. They just thought it was all happening all over again. Could you imagine?

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